Katia Gordeeva: Came back, Won and Leaving.

Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov are absolute Olympic champions of Lillehammer. Winners of the 1992 Olympics, Natalia Mishkutenok and Artur Dmitriev, are second. We are sincerely happy. While our country still has such talents, she, mighty and poor, won't be let down. God is still with us, if he brings up little and beautiful geniuses - or angels? - like Katia. With her, who carried all the hard load of competition in the late evening, we have our night conversation.

- Katia, first congratulations from "Komsomolka" (endearing name of the newspaper.- I.S.) and then a question or hope: are you really leaving?
-Evidently, yes.

-But you are great and strong, you are better then others, maybe you are the only one who can repeat Irina Rodnina's record.
-No, we won't get to a third medal. It's probably enough. To wait for four more years? No way For sure - no. It was very hard, especially because everybody said that it's going to be easy to win. Let Rodnina have the record.

-Some (not publicly of course) accuse you: became professionals, and now came back because of the money and profits...
-ISU decided that. But we decided to try our fate. Just look, not everybody returned. We felt that we could win and proved it. We didn't think about money. For now it is not the most important thing. We have enough.

-How long have you skated in professional shows?
-A few seasons.

-In the USA?
-In the US and all over the world.

-Is it true, that you have a house in Tampa, this Floridian city is known as heaven for the rich?
-It is true about the house, I don't know anything about the heaven for the rich. Actually we don't live in Tampa.

-But you gave birth in America?
-We were on tour in the States, and I gave birth to Dasha there. Now she lives with us in Moscow where we're training.

-With whom do you leave her?
-With the grandmothers.

-Did you skate with Sergei since your childhood?
-Since I'm eleven. He was fifteen then.

-And when did the love come?
-I don't remember the exact date - in 88, 8?.

-You are 22 now. Do you want another baby?
-Very much. We will have a second one.

-Is it going to be soon or are you going to wait?
-I don't know, however it'll happen, but we definitely will have one.

-If you are not going to skate till the Nagano Olympics, will you at least go to the World Championships in Japan this March?
-I don't know yet. Our federation will send one of the two pairs who returned from Hamar. We'll see and decide. But not tonight. At the Calgary Olympics everything was easier. Maybe we had better nerves? We didn't have so much pressure.

-Here in Hamar, we think, you skated better and had more freedom. Maybe you trained more?
-Hardly. I think, more intensely. Freedom came with the professionalism. There we didn't have strict rules, training is simpler, but you get confidence and more freedom. But anyway, thank you for the kind words.

-Why did you decide to train in Moscow instead of the States?
-Our first coach - Vladimir Zakharov - is in Moscow. He put me in the pair when I was a little girl.

-Sergei (we decided to get the great figure skater Sergei Grinkov to our conversation), why is it written in all of the programs that you are trained by Tatiana Tarasova?
-Where is it written? What is written? Show me where it is written and then we'll talk about it. Why talk in vain?

Really, why? We've been satisfied by a conversation with a little girl - Mona Lisa. Let the tired and big giant rest.